It's harder to find Anthem's lair than usual. When I don't appear directly inside, I'm usually just down the hall, a brisk walk away. Tonight, my regular intuition has been thrown aside, and I wander the halls as if it's for the first time. Will's been in it the whole time. He's got parallel outfit theming going on. I want to run the sword down the sides of the Veins, to gut the hateful dragon who ruined my life-- our lives-- from the inside. I want someone to tell me that trying to protect my brother wasn't entirely for nothing, but that's disingenuous, because I never did this to protect him in the first place.

I mean, I am protecting everyone. Not just him.

When I at last find the lair, it's already changed on me. I can't say I was expecting it to keep up the old look, not with new responsibilities, but what really bothers me about the place is that it feels complete, now. A single staircase winds up infinitely stretching floors of a library that is now vertically instead of horizontally arranged, with all the main doors at the bottom. The hearth lies on one side of the room, the chairs around it stretching all the way out to the middle, and are occasionally cut by pillows or beanbags. The air is warmer, the fire livelier, and there's even a distant white-noise hum, an approximation of sound in our world, all folded together in a far more delicate illusion.

Harper and Serena sit by the fire. Harper looks up first, throws her head back. "Things are about to get really wild, aren't they, Adam?"
"Chief. Seen the devil lately?" I ask.

"She's not here. We got an urgent alert from here, and then when we showed up, the room was like this, empty. As for the other devil, Evan's in the Delegation," Serena says. "Likely."

"Very funny," I say. "I'd imagine Anthem won't want to show her face for a while. How hard did she say it was to kill cherubs again?"

"What's driving you to matricide today?" asks Serena.

"It's not matricide, it's suicide," I correct her. "We have some unexpected guests today, on top of the renovation. There are more Diosite wielders outside. I don't think that they're working on the Delegation, too, so there's probably also an entirely different plot out there we weren't even aware of."

The evidence busts down the door before I have to amend that I'm not just pulling their legs. Four superheroes shuffle in in a disorganized jumble. Will, in slightly less cluttered clothing, is at the helm. He looks up at the lair, recognizing parts of it as I recognized parts of my own, and sighs. At his side, several people fidget. "Roll call?" I suggest. "So we can at least recognize each other."

"Serena Price."

"Harper Liu."

"Karen Ellis," says a girl with dark skin and a huge, frizzy cloud of hair.

"Garrett Williams," announces a skimpier boy with the most ridiculous looking anime sunglasses on.

"Amanda Park." Great. So she is here.

"Will Rosenbloom."

"Adam Rosenbloom.

"We're Team Alpha," I say.

"Team Omega," says 'Garrett'. "Formerly Team Omega. Potentially Team Omega again... this is creepy."

Karen just leers at us. "What this is is another lie atop the pile."

"They don't look that happy to see you," I mutter to my brother.

"I'm even less happy to see you," Amanda brandishes a brush in my direction, tipped with slightly smoking red paint. It's very... her. "What did Ignatius do to Megan? What did you do to Megan? Did you kill her?"
"No," I say. "She did die during a mission--"

"I knew it!"

"Evan killed her," Serena admits, solemnly.

"I'll kill him--" hollers Amanda.

"He's under mind control," I tell her. "Don't say shit you don't understand, Amanda. Have you considered, for a second, blind race might not be the only answer to your problems?"

"You fucking pig, you totally got her killed!" She punches me right in the chest. Of course, her fist deflects off the armor, but a shadow slams her from the side. She falls through a portal back onto her feet, readying her brush with some new color of punishment, and Serena deflects a spray of acid with a wall. Shouts and accusations fly through the air as magical energy does. Will yells, "Guys!" only to be ignored, which would be hilarious if I wasn't also banking on the chaos stopping at some point. Again, in that same, half-assertive voice, he yells, "Guys! Stop!" but this time, all of his teammates stop and cower like they've been hit.

I sense the change even before they do as two cherubs, almost indistinguishable from one another, slink into the room. The first is Anthem, who pulls away from the smaller, scrawnier cherub, and looks at us all with cold disappointment. The second cherub, whose purple eyes are full of kicked-puppy hurt, begging for sympathy I can assure you the tiny bastard does not deserve, cowers at her side.

"What are you?" asks Harper.

"Let me guess," I fold my arms. "Siblings?"

"That would be the closest human equivalent, yes," Anthem says. "I suppose you have questions."

It's too ironic to even be a joke. Half of us are too defeated to even sass her back, let alone appreciate just how hilariously tragic the whole premise is. I decide to give us a punchline. I raise my sword, let it come alive with fire and light. "I have an answer, and that answer is violence. Give us one reason that we shouldn't bash your sorry brains in, right now, for lying to and manipulating all of us for this long. For keeping us apart when together, we could have fixed everything. For letting innocent people die on your watch when you had an additional extra arsenal ready the entire time."

Will grabs my hand. "Because we need them. They're the only ones who know what to do."

"We could've beaten Ignatius in one run," complains Karen, running her fingers through her hair. "Are you joking? Is this some kind of sadistic joke?"

"You could have," agrees the smaller cherub. "Easily."

"And all of you would have been dead before you managed to take on the Delegation properly," Anthem strides forwards, the click of her little goat's feet the only true sound in the place besides our own angry, unbelieving breath. "I appreciate your obsequiousness, smaller Rosenbloom. If you weren't so... emotionally volatile, I might have used you instead. As for an explanation, as you know, we are creatures of intellect far superior to human intellect, to the extent where we are able to grasp futures before they happen. We seek the most opportune timeline to guide you to... we were certain of our choices, but certain differences in personality would have torn apart the team before it was adequate to dispatch both Diosite breaches. For example, certain inabilities of certain members across teams to cooperate, which lead to our initial idea of splitting the party."

Anthem never lies.

So, on several levels, I really did get her killed.

Will sucks in a breath besides me. "Shiloh...? Did you really lie to me the whole time?"

The smaller cherub lowers his ears. "You have to understand none of this was my idea, Will. I did what was best for the universe, and indirectly, for you as well. I was honest as I could be, even if I had to... omit things. I can only hope you'll forgive me in time."

"We don't need their forgiveness. We need their cooperation. Things are closing in on an end now, and given your combined strengths, we have reached a point where cooperation can be mutually beneficial. I see, from the holes on the wall, that you have all already introduced yourselves," Anthem says. "In terms of powers. Now it lies on you to make final plans to take out both Ignatius Faust, rogue Diosite holder, and the Delegation. We will be there, although I take it, from the combined weight of all of your thoughts, that if anything you would prefer that we left. Discuss as you will."

The two of them, ascend the steps like a regular pair of mountain goats. They ascend ever higher, past our reach, past accountability, and past my will or ability to drag them back down and run them both through with a sword. After all, they're right. We do have a job to do, only we can do it, and now that we've been properly acquainted, we have half a chance of doing it.

"She possessed us," Karen says. Her fingers crackle with electricity, as does her hair. "That was who possessed us on the night we last fought together as a team."

"They must have been working together the whole time," Will says, hollowly. "Keeping us apart. Playing off our feelings."

"It can't have been hard," Karen says. "You were the one who left us, Will."

"What happened?" asks Serena.

"I decided to strike out alone," Will says. "I didn't want anyone else to get hurt."

"Our villain got rough. Someone decided to take the weight of the world on his shoulders," Karen snaps.

"That's unfortunate," I say. Really, I'm mildly impressed.

"We've been--" Harper pauses. "Just to catch you all up to speed. We've been fighting a dad cult deep under the earth, sourced out of a nuclear power plant that got abandoned thirty years ago. It's full of people who can't control themselves anymore and are total slaves to the Diosite, except not just the Diosite, because now they can replicate its frequency and convert people without getting them hooked on the rock. Also one of our team members is being possessed and another got stabbed by him the first time he got possessed. So that's where we are."

"Now that's unfortunate," Garrett says.

"I think so too," I say, with a wonderful degree of forced empathy. "Let's just decide on a rational plan of action, and then we'll put all of it in our pasts." Great. I still sound like a cherub.

"Wait," Amanda says. "You, Megan, and Evan were teammates. I need to know. Were you... really more than that?"

I can feel the gaze of everyone in the group on me. Of course, Harper and Serena know, but they're being gracious enough to let me come out of the closet on my own. I'd say I never expected to come out like this, but actually, I never expected to come out, period. I didn't expect to be in the closet. "That doesn't matter."

"It matters to me. I'm not fighting at your side unless I get a straight answer."

The answer isn't straight, so I don't know what she intends to get out of me. With my teammates on one side, my brother on the other, and all of us avoiding the frankly much more comfortable chairs we could all be talking in, I at last rise up to the truth. "I was in a romantic relationship with Megan Briggs and Evan Drake. I am still in a relationship with Evan, or will be, once we save him, because Megan and I need to be there for him, no matter what happens. I don't expect anyone here would get... it... and I know it's... not ... not strictly conventional... but my feelings are what they are... and I didn't know I could feel that way about someone, honestly, until I loved them, and it felt like the whole world opened up," I'm crying. Again. Twice in one night is some kind of record. Usually I at least get the dignity of crying in private, or my preferred alternative, sitting in dead silence and watching the feelings move over me like a thunderstorm rolling through a valley, torching everything with blasts of lightning until nothing stands to burn. Honesty does weird things to me, such as making me seem unnecessarily sympathetic. In reality, I could not want their pity less. "I love them both."

"Thank you."

Amanda's too calm. "That's it?" I ask.

She trembles with rage. "That's it. Let's not talk about it. Let's talk about Ignatius."

"Botanokinetic. Can create all kinds of plant-related monsters, which he can control at will," Karen says. "Usually at Will, too, he has some weird thing with strangling us."

"Sounds like an easy nights' work," I say to the group. They nod. It would be even easier with Evan, but what the hell. I'm half sure Amanda has firepower, too, which begs the question, why haven't they gotten rid of him yet?

"Easy?" yells Will. "Easy? Are you kidding? Adam, he killed someone!"

"One person? What do you think all these missing persons reports have been coming from?" I yell back. "In case you haven't noticed, because clearly, Will didn't, we've fighting been eight times a week just to stay afloat here, for near a month, and hell knows how many missions we went on before that. How many times did you try, three?"

"I have been doing this every four hours for two weeks!" exclaims Will. "Alone!"

"You're not alone anymore," Karen promises. "We'll do this together. All of us. At the very least, we owe ourselves a chance to prove to the cherubs that they're full of shit."

Will chokes up. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," offers Garrett.

Nothing is fine right now.

"Look, even with the worst happening, I wasn't even sure you'd all show up--" Will's eyes fog up. "I'm so sorry. I've been a bad leader and a bad friend."

Amanda steps in to hold him. She's likely a better friend to him than I've ever been, and her glare lets me know that's exactly what she's thinking. As he sniffs, leaning back on her, the rest of his team folds in.

"Leave it to all of us, alright, Will?" Karen says. "Tell us what he's been up to. Tell us what we need to do, and this time, we don't hold back."

"When to do it would be great, too," I offer, standing at the edge of the huddle, supported only by the grip of my own two arms.

From his huddle, Will Rosenbloom jerks a little bit, then wrests himself out of Amanda's arms. Sounding haunted, and not entirely himself, he asks us, "How do you feel about right now?"